Alec Guinness quotes
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“An actor is at his best a kind of unfrocked priest who, for an hour or two, can call on heaven and hell to mesmerize a group of innocents.”
-- Alec Guinness -
“An actor is totally vulnerable. His total personality is exposed to critical judgment - his intellect, his bearing, his diction, his whole appearance. In short, his ego.”
-- Alec Guinness -
“We live in an age of apologies. Apologies, fake or true, are expected from the descendants of empire builders, slave owners and persecutors of heretics, and from men who -in our eyes- just got it all wrong. So, with the age of 85 coming up shortly, I want to make an apology. It appears I must apologize for being male, white, and European.”
-- Alec Guinness -
“Failure has a thousand explanations. Success doesn't need one.”
-- Alec Guinness -
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“I don't know what else I could do but pretend to be an actor.”
-- Alec Guinness -
“There seems to be no end to the senseless wickedness done on this little planet in a minor solar system, and we puny mortals appear to be decreasing in importance so far as the universe is concerned.”
-- Alec GuinnessSource : Alec Guinness (1998). “My Name Escapes Me: The Diary of a Retiring Actor”, Penguin Mass Market
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“Essentially, I'm a small-part actor who's been lucky enough to play leading roles for most of his life.”
-- Alec Guinness -
“Best performance of the year: Aston Villa v. Milan, September 1994”
-- Alec GuinnessSource : Alec Guinness (2001). “A Commonplace Book”
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“An Actor is an interpreter of other men's words, often a soul which wishes to reveal itself to the world but dare not, a craftsman, a bag of tricks, a vanity bag, a cool observer of mankind, a child and at his best a kind of unfrocked priest who, for an hour or two, can call on heaven and hell to mesmerize a group of innocents...”
-- Alec GuinnessSource : Alec Guinness (1986). “Blessings in Disguise”, New York : Knopf
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“The applause of all but very good men is no more than the precise measure of their possible hostility.”
-- Alec GuinnessSource : Alec Guinness (1998). “My Name Escapes Me: The Diary of a Retiring Actor”, Penguin Mass Market
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“Much of the day I have busied myself making notes on the small parts in Shakespeare, often nameless, which are rewarding to the actor if only he'll not dismiss them as beneath his dignity. If I can work it up into a talk I might call it, 'Only a cough and a spit ' -the phrase so often used by actors to explain away a lack of opportunity.”
-- Alec GuinnessSource : Alec Guinness (1997). “My Name Escapes Me: The Diary of a Retiring Actor”, Viking Press
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“A superb tenor voice, like a silver trumpet muffled in silk.”
-- Alec GuinnessSource : Alec Guinness (1996). “Blessings in disguise”
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“I shrivel up every time someone mentions Star Wars to me.”
-- Alec Guinness -
“Young men make wars, and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage, and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution.”
-- Alec GuinnessSource : "Fictional character: Prince Faisal". "Lawrence of Arabia", 1962.
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“That's no moon. It's a space station”
-- Alec GuinnessSource : "Fictional character: Ben Obi-Wan Kenobi". "Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope", www.imdb.com. 1977.
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“A person who is keen to shake your hand usually has something up his sleeve.”
-- Alec Guinness -
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